laniloa

I've been making assorted cookie dough this week to freeze for a baby shower next week. Reading this thread required adding the korovas to tonight's batch. Mighty nice.

By this do you mean you soak the gelatin in just water and puree and add banana just before adding the hot sugar? ← Yes. Add the 4 packs gelatin to 1/2C water. Get your syrup started. As your syrup gets close to temp, puree the banana and add it to the gelatin, then mix in the syrup. ← Thanks. I liked the vanilla much better then the raspberry batch I made last weekend but banana strikes me as a great marshmallow flavor for whatever reason.

By this do you mean you soak the gelatin in just water and puree and add banana just before adding the hot sugar?

I had my first crack at these this weekend. They are unbelievably simple and are drawing many perplexed looks at the office that you can actually make marshmallows similar to what others have mentioned. I made one batch of raspberry and one vanilla. While I like the berry, the vanilla is fabulous. Just after cutting them yestarday they had a subtle strange taste that has disappeared today. Thanks Neil!

I was in Johnny Boys neighborhood a month or so ago and had planned to stop but there was 1 car in their parking lot and a dozen in the lot of the place across the street about 100 yards away (I'm blanking on the name). The pulled pork was tasty but a little heavy on the sauce. The root beer was just what I needed on the very hot day.

I made a batch last night with the Quaker Oats recipe and subbed dried cherries instead of raisins. I added lemon zest as recommended and it is fabulous. Thanks!

Do you prefer chocolate or non-chocolate desserts? Go with your preference. Both are great. ← ← Check and see if your library has them so you can give them a test drive to figure out which you want first.

I used to love bottlecaps. I remember them being more of a tingle then a full on fizz. I probably haven't had them in 20 years though but I could go for some right now. Are oompas like big Reece's pieces? I remember something like that.

That sounds wonderful. Even though I knew that freezing would tenderize the meringue, I didn't expect it to the extent that it happened. Keeping more crunch would be interesting. Did you decorate with sticks at home or are you doing htat just before serving?

I served my first concorde to friends last night. It was surprisingly simple to make considering it is a 3 page recipe! I borrowed Patrick's decorating pattern and put meringue sticks around the border with just a few scattered on top. Next time, I think I'd make the meringue disks thicker to get more distinct layers and more height. Now I just have to decide what to make next.

As a still reforming picky eater my advice would be to go at her pace without drawing too much attention to it. Keep the setting fun so she doesn't get defensive and dig in her heels. Grab onto any remotely positive comment she makes. If cooking multiple meals gets too tiresome, go out for dinner, happy hour and nibbles, brunch where someone else has to do the work and your focus can be on enjoying her company.

I have and am planning on a second batch of meringue. I've never made an assemble, freeze, wrap dessert before and while it sounds straightforward, it has me a little nervous. I've looked in other threads and gleaned some words of wisdom from you and others. It just seems counterintuitive for a mousse covered item.

I'm finally getting around to trying the concorde this weekend. Any tips from those who have tried it?

Gotcha. I think my cookies are some blend of soft and chewy and I'm also interested in chewier.

How are you distinguishing between chewy and soft? Mine are what I think of as very chewy and still very chewy the next day but I could see where they might be thought of as soft because they don't have any hint of crisp to the crust.

OK-- My King Arthur cookies taste very nice and are definitely chewy. I was a little skeptical at how wet the batter seemed but the cookies turned out well. My oven was running a little cold so the first trays in over-flattened. Mine are a little smaller then Patrick's and I think larger would be better. I used the full amount of chips and they are very chocolatey. I could see them also working well with less chocolate.

Now you've confused me. I've got some Ghiardelli double chocolate chips I want to use for some really chewy chocolate chip cookies, and I was about to go for the Big Chewy recipe, and now you bring in this one! Interesting that it uses corn syrup. Doug ← I just checked this book out of the library and am going to make a batch tonight. I can report back either tonight or tomorrow if you want to wait a day!

Has anyone tried the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion recipe for the essential chewy chocolate chip recipe? It uses vinegar to help with lift in the attempt to get a chewier cookie.

Last night I made a batch of the burnt sugar cake cupcakes for my office. Big hit so thanks for the recipe. I'm interested in technicque tips for burning the sugar since mine seized horribly when I added the boiling water. I just reheated and fished out a few of the more stubborn clumps to salvage but I figure there is a better way. Thanks.

It has been a while since I dealt with the basa-catfish issue but I remember some of it. As basa exports increased, they were outcompeting the US farm-raised catfish for market share, particularly in the frozen fillet sector which had been one of the higher profit sectors. The lesser basa you have experienced may not actually be basa but tra, another fish in the same family as basa that is sometimes sold under the higher valued basa name. Think of it like the taste difference between salmon and trout -- both salmonids but the difference in species and growth environment influences taste. After the Congressional ban, the Vietnamese fish farmers started to niche market the product and actually increased their sales and profit margin. Catfish has a definite place in the US market but isn't considered a high-value fish so by no longer being catfish basa became a little more upscale. The resulting increase of basa at the lower price led to a dumping claim by the catfish growers. Even though the product was deemed so not like a catfish that it would be defrauding the US public to call it catfish and we needed a law to define what is and is not a catfish. I'm not sure which of the problems you are asking about Ducky, but basa farms tend to be in ponds or otherwise protected so they don't have the same exposure to rough seas that leads to escapement of fish. They are also native to the areas where farmed so that there isn't an invasive species problem. There were claims during the debate about being grown in polluted waters but US inspection teams found that wasn't true.

In 2001, Congress decided that only one taxonomic family of catfish (out of the roughly 30-35 families commonly used in science) was allowed to be referred to as catfish. Basa belongs to one of the other taxonomic families.

The chocolate caramels came out wonderfully this time using 2/3 the butter and going 2 degrees higher. Still no discernable taste of the lemon and I added the zest at the end as others suggested trying. It would be interesting to try without and compare to see what sort of background note it gives the candy. I also made the fleur de sel caramels mentioned in another thread to get a handle on the color of the caramel as Wendy suggested. The folks at work will eat well today.

They are certainly tasty but it makes it hard to bring them someplace to share and I can't eat all this stuff myself! (OK- I probably could but that wouldn't be the best idea) I'm going to try another batch tonight and cut back a little on the butter and go to a slightly higher temperature.

When I make the Sparklers I generally have to pat some sugar to cover the bald spots of the initial roll. I use demerara sugar and haven't had a problem with it sticking. The sugar on the bottom of the roll gets a little moist by the time I finish cutting so I try to move fast. After my concern about the caramels being too hard, they were way too soft. And also sort of oily to the touch as if all of the fat hadn't been incorporated. Is that common when they are undercooked? Should I cut back on butter in my next attempt? They tasted wonderfully (but no discernable lemon) and I'll use them as a middle layer for some brownies where shape won't matter.

Hey everyone...so glad I found this thread. I noticed at a store today they were selling what looked a heck of a lot like the Concorde and it reminded me that I haven't baked in a while. The chocolate sparklers are among my favorite cookies. Seeing the cake in the store made me want to try it. I'm not the most experienced home baker so it was encouraging to hear the success stories with this cake. And if you are wondering what your efforts are worth, they were selling it for $45. I didn't have easy access to everything I'd need or the time to pick stuff up so I made my first attempt at the chocolate-lemon caramels instead. I was unsure about the lemon surivivng that much cooking so I'm not surprised to hear from everyone that the taste doesn't really come through. I'm not sure if mine will be as soft as others' because they got pretty hot while caramelizing, well above soft ball temps. They are cooling now and I'll report back how they came out.